Understanding Complex Sentences: Native Speaker Variation in Syntactic Competence

Chipere, N.

ISBN 10: 1349431028 / ISBN 13: 9781349431021

Published by MacMillan, 2003

About this Item

Print on Demand pp. 248.

Seller Inventory # 371840191

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Understanding Complex Sentences: Native Speaker Variation in Syntactic Competence
• Publisher: MacMillan
• Publication Date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1349431028
• ISBN 13: 9781349431021
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

Is native speaker variation in understanding complex sentences due to individual differences in working memory capacity or in syntactic competence? The answer to this question has very important consequences for both theoretical and applied concerns in linguistics and education. This book is distinctive in giving an historical and interdisciplinary perspective on the rule- based and experience-based debate and in supporting an integrated account. In the study reported here, variation was found to be due to differences in syntactic competence and the author argues that sentence comprehension is a learned skill, displaying many of the general characteristics of cognitive skills. The book will be stimulating reading for psycholinguists, theoretical linguists, applied linguists and educators.

About the Author

DR NGONI CHIPERE is Research Fellow in the Department of Education at Reading University, working on child language development. His doctoral research in sentence comprehension was undertaken at Cambridge University and he held a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate prior to his current post . He has extensive teaching experience in schools.